"Honestly, when I listen to radio, that ain't where I wanna be no more," said Kanye West during a brief-but-potent bit of banter in the middle of his Governors Ball set last night, talking about his unconventional, radio-single-free marketing strategy leading up to his new album Yeezus. "At this point, I could give a fuck about selling a million records, as long as I put out an album that you can rock to all motherfucking summer." And based on the five new tracks played last night-- "New Slaves", "Black Skinhead", and three others-- it's probably good that he doesn't have his sights set on multi-platinum status this time, because Yeezus is shaping up to be his most outré album yet. The previously unheard songs were all about desperation, ice-pick synths, and convulsing drums, something like a hyperkinetic version of 808s & Heartbreak's relatively dour robo-paranoia."

" Yeezus is shaping up to be his most outré album yet. The previously unheard songs were all about desperation, ice-pick synths, and convulsing drums, something like a hyperkinetic version of 808s & Heartbreak's relatively dour robo-paranoia.

see, this is the thing with Pac. i can't never understand what he's talking about. it's all good thou, Suchfriends. see, now i KINda understand why my Tupac loving friend didn't want to hear the Deep. this dude used to give the best lip singing impression of him like i was a camera.

i don't know shit about shakur and completely understand he's a hero to millions. just not a fan, no hate.

This is 1990s 101:

Know Your Rap Beef..

Tupac worked on some tracks that Mobb Deep somehow took offense too. This caused them to put out a track in rap retaliation. Slight problem, Tupac was by this time no longer just a rapper, but had become a gangsta after joining up with M.O.B and Pirus from Suge Knight connections. Outlaws Immortal was a rap krew Tupac started on the West as Makaveli, but all those little homiez were from M.O.B and other Blood sets in West/South Central LA area. Hence how Tupac actually got it twisted, in LA "westside" was originally about beef between Westside Bloods and (Athens, Pirus, Avalon) and Eastside Crips (South LA, Watts, Compton) and Tupac, being from Baltimore, didn't realize it at first. HE had personal beef with his former associates and friends from the East coast rap/gang scene. LA gang life will really instigate a lot of shit, so what was some quarrels between friends became a full-fledged blood feud (this of course was after Pac was shot five times in New York HOWEVER Pac wasn't shot in New York over rap shit, he was shot over some gang shit.

This made him very paranoid to say the least. That, and DeathRow was shady as a motherfucker, couldn't really trust ANYBODY up in there, full of dealers and crooked cops. The record label was really just started as a money laundering scheme like a dozen other small-time LA area rap labels in the late 1980s but Tupac and Snoop Dogg made that shit unexpectedly explode onto the mainstream..

Back to Mobb Deep. These dudes were cliqued up with the East Coast dudes Tupac was feuding with, and they released some tracks after have some private words behind closed doors. This caused Tupac and his dudes to then have some more hostile words behind closed doors and later on some tracks. By 1996, Tupac was beefing with essentially the entire East Coast rap scene, and much of the West coast rappers too. However these beefs weren't hyped, or musical, it was some personal shit between all those folkz...

I can't do Tupac at all anymore. For some reason, motherfucker sounds like he wants to ficking kill the people he feuded with. I can't separate his music, or him as an mc from the content of his lyrics, the way I can with Biggie (who also totally sounded like be wanted to absolutely murder someone, but tracks like Juicy helped keep him from sounding like a psychopath. For me, even "Dear Mama" sounds violent as hell. I just hear Pac, and think of really angry kids O went to high school with. Plus, most of the people he talked about doing awful things to were some of my favorite hip hop artists of the era.

Motherfucker even tried to throw down against Wu Tang, which I just can't abide. I mean, having beef with a horde of dudes who -even if none of them had Tupac's underwear model abs, would surely make a bloody mess of him in a fist fight, just seems silly. Especially when every one lf them outclassed him several times over in the rhyming department and had a sense of humor that apparently went way over his head.

Great rapper, but he had none of Biggie's charm. In retrospect, It sounds like he was the one guy who couldn't separate media hype and image from life. I guess being shot at will do that to a guy.

Anyway- he is ultimately the one major 90s gangsta rapper who I just can't handle anymore.

Especially when every one lf them outclassed him several times over in the rhyming department and had a sense of humor that apparently went way over his head.

That is a matter of taste, personally I think half of the east coast rappers, including those who Tupac feuded with, simply rap like shit. Their fucking cadence is off..

Quote:

. In retrospect, It sounds like he was the one guy who couldn't separate media hype and image from life. I guess being shot at will do that to a guy.

You don't know what you are talking about. All that media hype was exaggerations and speculations about what was REALLY happening behind closed doors outside of the music and the newspapers. Tupac had personal beef for personal reasons with all those people you think is just about rap or him living some kind of fantasy. They knew it, he knew it, and they shouldn't have been so naive as to think it was all just about rap music. Tupac's rap music was art reflecting a certain reality, one which he took seriously because it was his own. Did he get too caught up? Yes. But so did 50,000 shot or killed gangsters in the LA area from 90-1997... That is just how it iz. Maybe y'all can't feel it cuz it ain't real to some of y'all, and you are critiquing it simply as a form of art or music, and judging him harshly by those terms.

i'm listening to Mac Miller's new album. definitely one of the better albums this year, but just like Wolf it could've been much better if he cut 4-5 tracks. why do rappers still make their albums so unnecessarily long?

That is a matter of taste, personally I think half of the east coast rappers, including those who Tupac feuded with, simply rap like shit. Their fucking cadence is off..

You don't know what you are talking about. All that media hype was exaggerations and speculations about what was REALLY happening behind closed doors outside of the music and the newspapers. Tupac had personal beef for personal reasons with all those people you think is just about rap or him living some kind of fantasy. They knew it, he knew it, and they shouldn't have been so naive as to think it was all just about rap music. Tupac's rap music was art reflecting a certain reality, one which he took seriously because it was his own. Did he get too caught up? Yes. But so did 50,000 shot or killed gangsters in the LA area from 90-1997... That is just how it iz. Maybe y'all can't feel it cuz it ain't real to some of y'all, and you are critiquing it simply as a form of art or music, and judging him harshly by those terms.

I don't have time for a big reply, but I meant that there's something about his voice that makes me believe he forgot the fact that the media hype was exaggeration. Like I said, it's something about his delivery that I just can't handle anymore. While even Biggie is still enjoyable for me, Pac just kind of unnerves me. I don't think he wasn't an artist- I'm just not able to dig on it anymore. I have similar feelings about NWA if it makes you feel any better. No value judgments here... I just don't get any pleasure from listening to him.

That is a matter of taste, personally I think half of the east coast rappers, including those who Tupac feuded with, simply rap like shit. Their fucking cadence is off..

You don't know what you are talking about. All that media hype was exaggerations and speculations about what was REALLY happening behind closed doors outside of the music and the newspapers. Tupac had personal beef for personal reasons with all those people you think is just about rap or him living some kind of fantasy. They knew it, he knew it, and they shouldn't have been so naive as to think it was all just about rap music. Tupac's rap music was art reflecting a certain reality, one which he took seriously because it was his own. Did he get too caught up? Yes. But so did 50,000 shot or killed gangsters in the LA area from 90-1997... That is just how it iz. Maybe y'all can't feel it cuz it ain't real to some of y'all, and you are critiquing it simply as a form of art or music, and judging him harshly by those terms.

I'm really judging it more by how fun it is for me to listen to. I'm taking a pretty vacant, shallow view of it, really... I'm not judging it by its artistic merits, but by the fact that it makes me feel bummed the fuck out. I hope you understand where I'm coming from here. It takes a lot for hip hop to be "too much" for me, but that man's voice was full of a specific kind of hostility and anger that I can't really enjoy at this point in my life.

yeah Pac became crazy after Me Against the World, he often contradicted himself, which made him seem like a bipolar nut. but you can tell that the dude spoke from the heart, the way he conveyed emotion was unmatched in an era where most rappers were afraid to show their feelings. although i don't listen to him as much as i used to, i can see why a lot of people consider him to be the greatest of all time.

"Me Against the World", "Dear Mama", "Unconditional Love", "Changes", etc. some of the most passionate performances by any rapper ever.

I'm really judging it more by how fun it is for me to listen to. I'm taking a pretty vacant, shallow view of it, really... I'm not judging it by its artistic merits, but by the fact that it makes me feel bummed the fuck out. I hope you understand where I'm coming from here. It takes a lot for hip hop to be "too much" for me, but that man's voice was full of a specific kind of hostility and anger that I can't really enjoy at this point in my life.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Severian again.

It's true. His cadence was incredible. You're the one who mentioned cadence, yes? I'll totally admit the man was a freakishly skilled rapper. I really don't have anything against him, and louder is right about songs like "Changes," which I didn't take into account. I've got respect for him and I'm man enough to admit that I am judging him only by how much his angrier songs kind of freak me out. They sound too real for me. To tell the truth, I'm listening to Ready to Die less and less every year as well. I'm getting old, man. I've watched about three too many decades of evening news to find his music enjoyable. At least I can admit its my own weak stomach.

i haven't been able to stop listening to 808s & Heartbreak lately. an underrated masterpiece.

Underrated by some, maybe. I think it's the most ballsy and ambitious hip hop record ever. The fact that he pulled it off, with hit singles and Grammys to boot, tells me that while it may be underrated when compared to MBDTF, it's a classic when evaluated on its own merit by anyone with eardrums.

"Amazing" is a revelatory song. Genius in ways people don't even understand yet. Like I said, it's the album that first made me open my ears to Kanye, who Id previously thought to be a slightly less impotent Common.

(Sorry, but Common bores the shit out of me. Though to be fair, it may be because I haven't bothered listening to him in ages. Be was just way too common - hey, a pun! - for me. Yeah, Tupac's a bit much, but I still vote skill > comfort any day of the week)